All balances are at $0.00 – I no longer owe banking institutions anything. My next pay check will be mine, ALL MINE. So, for one final time, lets review my debt stats:

Starting debt – March 2014

Credit card #1 – $2377.12

Credit Card #2 – $5000.00

Personal loan – $7397.00

Total debt: $14,774.12

June 2014

Credit card #1 – $0.00

Credit card #2 – $0.00

Personal loan: $0.00

Total debt repaid: $14,774.12 (BOOM!!!)

My journey to Debt Freedom has taken approximately 15 months. I only wish I’d started earlier. If you are reading this blog because you are thinking about getting out of debt, don’t delay – start RIGHT NOW.

A huge THANK YOU to all my fellow debt bloggers for encouraging me along the way. There are so many fantastic PF blogs out there. The days I felt discouraged or ready to give up, I’d just spend time reading over other debt smashing blogs for inspiration!

So this is goodbye and good luck from The Debt Breakup. My next financial journey will be saving for a backpacking adventure through Central America at the end of 2014. I’ve got a steep savings goal to meet by the end of December!

You can follow my progress at www.4000sundays.com – my blog about travel, minimalism and making the most of every day!

As my journey to debt freedom draws to an end, I’d like to share the 10 things that had the biggest impact to reducing my debt. I haven’t included ‘making a budget’ as I think that is a given!

I’ve separated these points into 2 categories:

Action and Attitude

I believe the Actions you take and the Attitude you have while paying off debt are intrinsically linked. You can’t take action without the right attitude.

5 ACTIONS that helped me pay off debt

Saying No

Learning to say no – to people, to purchases and to yourself plays a huge role in winning the war on debt. I found declining invites from friends for nights out, drinks, weekends away etc to be really tough. Tough, but an essential action to take if you want to set yourself free from debt.

While I didn’t tell friends and family how much debt I was in when I started the journey, I did make it clear that I was making a serious effort to tighten purse strings to pay back debt, and that meant I had to cut some fun things out for awhile. Quite awhile. I learnt to say – ‘I’m sorry, but I really can’t afford to do ABCXWZ this weekend, I’ve got a tough budget to stick to this week’

Most people understand, and if they don’t, well too bad. Certainly don’t sacrifice your budget for someone who doesn’t respect your goals. This doesn’t mean you can never go out and have fun while paying off debt – it just means prioritise the activities that mean something to you and choose those over spending cash on random nights out every Friday.

Record every single purchase you make for at least a month.

I actually recorded every purchase I made for a year. It became a habit and it was the key to becoming completely aware of everything I spent. I mean, if I spent 50cents on a packet of gum, I’d record it. Yep, that probably seems excessive – and sometimes it did get to me. But it helped by revealing patterns and behaviours in my spending and where I could ‘cut the junk’.

When I was fully aware of the things that burnt a whole in my pocket, I continued recording everything I spent as a habit to keep me on track. Debt and paying it off HAS to be at the front of your mind EVERY TIME you make a purchase (big or small) if you plan to win the war.

I just jotted down the purchase and the cost on the note section of my phone. Even the simple action of taking out my phone to add to my purchase list was an opportunity to check myself. I had a moment to think about what I was about to spend and scan the list of the items already purchased that day / week.

So give it a go – 1 month. Record everything. You will be surprised (and potentially alarmed! 😉 ) at where your money is going.

Implement spend free days

I don’t know who originally coined the term Spend Free days in the world of PF blogging, but it really is a genius concept. Many bloggers out there set themselves spend free days and weeks (and months!)

I soon jumped on board to employ this effective little tactic in my own Get Debt Free strategy. I would regularly set myself 2 spend free days per week. These are days where you spend nothing, except on essential items – ie, a train ticket. Ok, so what stops you buying something you really want on non spend day? Well I saw the whole point of spend free days to curb mindless consumerism on the junk items. You know, the stuff you buy without even thinking *hand goes to wallet, money comes out, I’m $10 poorer without even batting an eye*….. magazines, coffee, lunch takeout, a glass of wine after work, that kind of stuff. The point of my spend free days was to put a stop to spending without thinking. It worked.

Cut the junk STRAIGHT AWAY

We spend money on so much SHIT. Seriously. Cut the junk from your spending. Like, straight away. If you are in debt and looking to get debt free, frivolous expenses must go immediately. These purchases add nothing of real value to your life except a fleeting moment of satisfaction or more likely, distraction. Then it is all over red rover and you’ve spent 5 bucks on a magazine to read about the latest Kimye scandal.

Make your budget REALISTIC – it is ok to ease into it.

Yep, I know the enthusiasm…. you are all ready to pay off your debt and you want to go in, repayment guns a blazin’ and smash it out ASAP.

This type of excitement is exactly what you need to get the momentum going. But one of the side effects to this excited attitude is a rather optimistic approach to setting your budget. Which is turn can lead to disappointment, frustration and wanting to give it all up, a few months in when all the excitement has worn off.

I had a huge budget fail when I first set about paying off my debt in March 2013. I drew up a budget which showed I would be out of debt in October 2013. The budget was unrealistic. It didn’t account for EVERYTHING and it left me with very little spending money. I knew for awhile it wasn’t working but I kept at it, and kept beating myself up when I went over budget (surprise, surprise) each month. Then I hit Debt Fatigue in a big way – I was WAY off my (unrealistic) goal and it would be another 8 months of debt repayment past October. Frustrated, disappointed and sick of debt – I stopped blogging for awhile, although I continued to make smaller repayments. Then I regrouped – I got my shit together with a realistic budget that included everything and set about attacking debt again with my new debt free date.

Set yourself up for success with a realistic budget. A good budget is not rigid, it’s flexible and fluid and allows you to adapt when you need too. When you look at your expenses, cut the junk first – without even considering keeping those items. Then, slowly, you can whittle down your expenses. You will be surprised what you are happy to go without and places your budget can be cut further once you get into a momentum.

5 ATTITUDES that helped my pay off debt

Never EVER EVER give up

We all know the saying and it’s cliché for a reason.

If you don’t give up making repayments, you will be debt free. At some point. One Day. Maybe not when you thought – refer to my Budget Fail – but if you don’t stop making those payments, the numbers will continue to tick down. We all have shit days when paying off debt. The days we want to buy everything in sight, where we are angry, frustrated and generally just pissed off at the hold debt has on our lives. Don’t let any of those reasons make you give up. Giving up is not an option. Take another look at the budget, cut yourself some slack for a week or buy a nice little purchase for yourself. Then get back on the horse and keep going.

Own your OWN debt

You are in debt because of you. If you acknowledge you are in debt but refuse to blame yourself, well, you are going to get nowhere fast. The most important thing when making a financial life change is the long term change of bad financial habits or behaviours. If you are looking around at everyone else to blame for your situation, you will never change the habits that got you there in the first place.

Continue to give and pay your own way

Ok, so this is a dual tip – action and attitude. People with stingy attitudes towards giving will NEVER BE SATISFIED with what they have. Getting debt free isn’t about being stingy towards others. I have continued to donate to charities and causes I support. There will always be others worse off than you. Sure, debt sucks but I don’t struggle to put food on the table or pay my rent. Others aren’t so fortunate. Never think that your situation is the worst. Wherever there is a lack, there is an opportunity to give – so have a giving attitude. Also, don’t skip out on a round of drinks with your mates if you have chosen to go out for the night. If you can’t afford it, don’t go.

Don’t think you are alone

If your attitude is Woe Is Me, No One Else In The World Understands This Debt Thing, then take 2 seconds to type I’m In Debt into google and you will see no, you certainly are NOT alone. There are so many stories, so much inspiration, so much advice out there around getting out of debt, you should never feel alone. Ok, so maybe you are the only one in your family or circle of friends in debt, but investigate the resources available to you – and the support! The PF blogging world has been a huge inspiration to me.

And my last piece of advice?

Be passionate

A passionate attitude toward doing all you can to get out of debt, will see you realise that debt free date sooner than you thought possible. So get started today – and change your life! Debt free is set free.

So, there are my top 10 tips – I’d love to hear they number 1 thing that has helped you on your journey to debt freedom!

Readers of the Debt Breakup will probably be familiar with my love of coffee. So I guess it comes as no surprise that the one habit I couldn’t kick during my journey to debt freedom was my daily coffee.

I tried, I really did. Sometimes, I went a week with only a few coffee purchases. Or a month on a coffee budget. Sometimes coffee purchasing was sporadic. I would take different routes to work to avoid the cafes I would frequent and the siren call of caffeine.

But long term resistance was futile.

I gave up trying to give up coffee about 3 months ago. I thought, fuck this. I love coffee. It is the ‘one a day’ treat I allow myself when I have given up buying a lot of things that once upon a time appeared on my Stuff I Buy list.

I don’t miss a lot of things on my old Stuff I Buy list. The further down the path to debt freedom I got, the more I realised I could get by just fine without a lot of the things I thought I needed. Don’t get me wrong, I still have the occasional urge to spend ridiculous amounts of money on clothes or skin care or bust out and take an impromptu trip to Bali.

I knew I needed to give up those things, to get where I (almost!) am. I told myself if was a limited time frame for me to have to curb my spending, so just suck it up and get on with it. The funny thing is, along the way, curbing these habits and changing spending patterns out of necessity, I can confidently say I won’t be returning to them, even when I’m debt free. Yep, I’ll buy more clothes and yep I’ll do more ‘fun’ stuff but I won’t be spending beyond my means and I will be socking as much cash away as possible to fund my end of year trip to Central America.

So, a lot of purchases got the boot. But my small skinny latte stayed. Afterall…life if to short not to drink coffee.

On another note, I have 1 more payment to make – my current debt balance stands at $623.01.

With less than a month to go until my final repayment, I have been reflecting a little on my journey to debt freedom and something that has struck me is the solitary nature of this battle.

Only 2 people – other than readers of the Debt Breakup – know exactly how much debt I’m paying off. Honestly, no-one else would really care. I mean sure, people would be like ‘good on you’ and ‘well done’ or even – ‘well you were stupid enough to get into that much debt in the first place so woop de doo, you’ve paid it off’

Most people won’t realise – or care too much – about how much it has taken to get to this point. Patience, diligence, restraint, sacrifice – REPEAT. Over and over again.

And really, when it comes down to it, why should anyone else care? This is the debt that I got myself into and I’m getting myself out of. I have no dependents and no spouse, so it affects no one but me. Yep, it was stupid of me to rack up so much debt – am I simply not just doing what I should have done years ago and making things right. Every cent I have paid towards my debt has been my own, no one has given me a leg up. It really has been an extremely solitary endeavor, and one that may have felt quite lonely at times if it weren’t for the readers of the Debt Breakup.

Blogging about my journey here, albeit anonymously, has helped me carry the momentum when I felt like giving up. The kind comments and encouraging sentiments left on my blog have told me I am not truly on the journey by myself. Others out there have felt the same sense of anxiety, panic, anger and stress about debt, and the sense of achievement as we pull closer and closer to the goal of $0.00.

My aim for this blog was never to take over the PF blogging world with a million readers and 1000’s of comments. It was to share my story and hope that others may find some inspiration, just as I have found in the many debt busting blogs along my journey.

So, thank you readers of the Debt Breakup. I can honestly say, this process would have been SO much harder without the blog and the readers 🙂

Pay day today and I put $480.00 towards my loan – only $1273.00 left to go!

In the last few weeks I have made some further adjustments to my budget:

I cancelled my gym membership – saving $23.90 per fortnight

I’ve been walking consistently to and from work.- saving $35.00 per fortnight

I cancelled my gym membership not because I didn’t use it but because I intended to join a new gym closer to home. However, with the walk too and from work each day – just over 8kms per day in total – I’ve found it to be a good substitute for the gym at the moment.

My current fortnightly budget looks like this:

$295 rent

$650 loan repayments (I put $450 on today as $173.00 was taken off last week as my actual repayment)

$50 buffer fund – current buffer fund is non existent as I put it all toward a recent dentist appointment.

$20 electricity

$50 save

$15 internet

$15 phone

$30 health insurance

$20 tithe

$250 groceries

$225 spending

This pay won’t play out exactly as planned, the dentist appointment meant my savings took a bit of a hit and I needed to make up for it this pay. I also bought a very nice bottle of champers and took my boyfriend out for a celebratory dinner last week – extra expenses to come from my savings that I needed to make up this week.

2 more pays (hopefully! I don’t want to be tempting fate here by being so excited 😉 to go folks!

The Debt Breakup will be finishing up pretty soon – only 3 payments left!

I will continue to blog – no longer anonymously – on my new blog 4000 Sundays. The next phase of my journey – saving for my trip to Central America at the end of this year, along with other bits and pieces – will continue here!

I’ve been posting a lot less these days, and there are a couple of reasons for this:

1) I’m working on a new blog! I’m looking forward to sharing the new blog with the readers of the Debt Breakup. My new blog won’t be anonymous 😉 so I guess you can find out a bit more about me!

2) I’m close to the end of my journey to debt freedom and thing are just rolling along – ie, not a lot of exciting updates to report. I’ve reached my ‘savings ceiling’ in that I have tweaked my budget time and time again – there isn’t much more I can squeeze out of it to pay towards debt or to save. But I’m very pleased with settling into a budgetary rhythm!

A cool thing I did do recently though was sell my stuff at a trash and treasure market 🙂 I’ve recently become a minimalist – something I cover off on my new blog – and letting go of many of my possessions has been the first step on my minimalist journey. I made $205.00 profit from the stall – which I was very pleased with considering most items were priced at $2 – $5!

So, my 60th week of debt repayments. 60 weeks.

For pretty much the entire last 60 weeks I have made financial decisions based on minimising my debt as a priority. I’ve said no to things, I’ve worn the same wardrobe, I’ve mostly made purchases of needs, not wants. I’ve cut and reduced costs in every part of my life I could. Time and time again I have put debt repayment before my whims, wants and generally fun stuff.

With the light at the end of the tunnel getting brighter and brighter, I can honestly say it has all been worth it so far.

I was close to cracking the ‘under $3000’ mark this month, but not quite!

Debt

Credit card 1 – $0.00

Credit card 2 – $0.00

Personal loan: $ 3,142.15 (previous update $3790.04)

Savings

$450.00 (increased by $50.00)

Buffer funds

$50.00 (decreased by $250.00 due to visit to the dentist and shock discovery of a hole the size of a moon crater in one of my teeth that needed filling!)

What else is new? Well, I’ve joined a health fund to lessen the impact of my Medicare (Australian health system) tax at tax time in June. I also purchased 3 personal training sessions at the gym but now I have completed these, I’m not sure I can afford more until I have paid off the loan.

What do I do to stay fit on a budget?

I have a gym membership – but a super cheap one, only $11.30 per week – and it is flexible, I can cancel anytime. I have recently started walking home from work – a little over 4kms. This is saving me cash on my travel and also great exercise – a brisk walk home, following my gym workout, is a great way to finish the day.

I run sometimes – not as much as I did last year when I took part in a few marathons – and I try and eat as well as I can. I have a few pieces of equipment at home but don’t use those so much as I have the gym – they are a good backup for a rainy day or a quick workout at home. You don’t need a lot of cash to stay fit – you just need to be motivated. Running, walking, beach swimming, home workouts – all free! You just need to get up and do it!

My health is my overall priority – even before debt freedom 🙂 so it is important for me to invest in it every day!